


My Lungs Ache Filled With Water

by plirio



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dean Winchester/OCs, Drama, M/M, Mention of Suicide (not Sam or Dean), Sam Winchester/OCs, So many emotions, Suicidal Thoughts, unprotected sex with underage prostitute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:28:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plirio/pseuds/plirio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s like when you remember you’re breathing. Every breath feels unnatural and mechanic. It’s like trying to forget about it so you can breathe properly, but never being able to again. It’s like spending the rest of your life feeling like you’re doing it wrong, like you’re not getting enough air. That’s what if feels like for Dean, being in love with Sam. And then one day, Sam goes and makes it worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lungs Ache Filled With Water

**One**

*

It’s like when you remember you’re breathing. Every breath feels unnatural and mechanic. It’s like trying to forget about it so you can breathe properly, but never being able to again. It’s like spending the rest of your life feeling like you’re doing it wrong, like you’re not getting enough air. 

That’s what if feels like for Dean, being in love with Sam.

It’s like spending your life pretending you don’t feel it, just so you can feel normal again, just for a second, just for freaking moment.

And it’s the weirdest thing.

The horrible certainty that there’s something wrong with you. That what you feel and think is so fucked up, so twisted, that you’re actually disgusted by it. But still, there’s always something worse than being alone in that fucked up, oxygen-deprived corner, than having to keep your mouth shut, than living terrified at what you might say or do. 

It’s the knowledge that you might’ve dragged someone along with you.

*

Dean would die for Sam every day, in a heartbeat, no questions asked, no second thought, plunging on fire for the tiniest, slowest heartbeat Sam could manage to give. Dean would kill anyone and would do anything. 

Sam’s just everything there is anywhere, at any time.

He’s awesome. 

Dean’s spent his life training to look out for Sam, and he knows everything there is to know on the subject. Which doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention anymore. He is. Sam’s his kid brother. He wouldn’t be able to stop even if he wanted to. 

Sam is the most fascinating thing Dean’s ever seen. And Dean has been in some pretty awesome places. But Sam is something else entirely.

The shittiest thing of it all is that Sam is sort of a twink, and he doesn’t even know it. He just turned sixteen, but looks older. He’s the perfect jailbait, tall and lean, skin tanned from too much training under the sun,bright smiles and dimples that get them the free piece of pie every time. He’s the wet dream of all teenage girls and, well, pretty much anyone else. And he spends too much time around Dean, looking at him like he’s something good, stealing his attention and messing with his head, twisting his lungs.

As if Dean’s head wasn’t already filled to the brim with Sam, Sam, Sam.

*

Dean doesn’t know exactly when it happened, when his brain stopped naming Sam as his _Brother_ and Sam became _Everything_. He thinks it might have always been like that, and he was just blissfully ignorant. It was better then. Before he could name it. Before he knew how fucked up and twisted he was.

Sam was fourteen and walking around hand in hand with his first girlfriend. 

Dean thinks he’ll die wondering what life would be like if Sam had never met her. If they were never introduced, if Sam had kept her away, hidden, had never let Dean see her. 

Sydnee was the kind of girl that made Sam’s panties all wet. She was smart and hot, and smiled at Sam like she could see how awesome he was, like she could see what _Dean_ saw. She had everything Sam wanted in a girl and when she was around, he looked like an idiot, wide eyes and big dimpled smile, talking about dead presidents or whatever historic figures that gave Sammy wet dreams. She was freaking perfect for Sammy.

Dean hated her.

In a way that was inexplicable, ridiculous and so fucking much. She wasn’t evil and she wasn’t mean. And he knew, logically, that their relationship wouldn’t last forever. But every time Sam came home, mouth red and hair sticking up in all directions, all Dean could think of was how easy it would be to get rid of her, to make her go away, to keep her from stealing Sam away. All he could think of was ways to make sure Sam didn’t need her anymore.

And Dean knew he was obsessed. He knew because no one else seemed to be doing it, no one outside a stalker movie did what Dean does. No one seemed to be waking up hard and horny after a sex dream involving their sixteen year old younger brother. No one seemed to try to gulp down the smell of the people they lived with. So he knew it was an obsession. He’s not stupid.

It was just worse knowing what it meant. Why his lungs became mechanic when Sam was around. 

*

Sam starts avoiding him.

He seems to be under the impression that he’s being subtle about it. Like the way he jerks away from Dean when they get too close is smooth. As if he didn’t look scared when they are alone. And Dean feels the familiar dread of being discovered, the fear that he might have been too obvious, that Sam might have figured it out. That Sam will be disgusted.

Sam avoids him like a disease for a week, and it makes Dean feel nauseated and angry. It would be easier if Sam just snapped. Just started throwing punches and curses. It would be less terrifying than all the things Dean’s brain keeps telling him. 

Dean tries to act normal. Too normal maybe, because by the end of the eighth day, Sam looks even more terrified and freaked out. And Dean realizes that Sam hasn’t said a word to him since he got home from school.

“Dad called this afternoon.” He says, pretending to be paying attention to the TV and not at every shift of Sam’s legs. “Said it’s gonna take another week.” 

“Oh.” Sam breathes, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Alright.”

“You might get to finish the school year before moving.”

“Right.” 

He gives up all pretense of not paying attention to Sam and scoots over, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam lets him, but goes rigid.“Sammy. Talk to me. What’s up with you?”

“What? I’m fine.”

“You have a really bad poker face.” Dean pokes him.

“Do not.”

“Do too. I can see you’re freaked out. Just tell me what’s up.”

“Nothing is going on!” Sam says, too loud. He stares at Dean’s face, eyes wide and face now flushed. “Just. Leave it, Dean. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Sam—“ 

“Stop it, ok?” Sam pushes him away and goes to his room, like the emo teenager he is sometimes. 

Dean’s head hits the wall behind the couch with a thump.

*

He thinks he might’ve fallen asleep. The TV is off now, the clock on the wall telling him he slept for two hours, and Dean looks around to see what woke him up. 

Sam’s sitting on the chair closest to the couch, knees up and face hidden.

At first he thinks Sam’s crying. And that sends a shock to his brain, forcing him to wake up, at once out of the couch, alert and ready to kill anything. But Sam looks up and his face is dry and his hair is a wild mess, he looks high and scared.

“Sammy? You ok?” 

“I’ve been. I don’t even—I don’t know. I’ve been trying to work this out, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do.” Sam shakes his head, looking around like a scared dog. “I don’t know what to do with it. What do I do?”

“What’s going on, Sammy?” 

“I’m so in love with you, Dean.” He blurts out. And holy shit. _Holy shit_. Dean feels like something grabbed hold of his heart and is trying to squeeze the blood out of it. “I’ve been in love with you for so long now. And I don’t even—I love you.”

God, no. Not Sam too. Don’t do this to Sammy too. Jesus! How can Dean spend so much time studying Sam and miss this bomb waiting to blow, this monster eating Sam too?

“What?” Dean backs away until his knees hit the couch and Sam looks even more scared now. Dean’s instincts tell him to make Sam better. But his mind is screaming to back away. To get the fuck out. To get out of the house, get into the car and drive until Sam’s words stop having any meaning.

“I. I love you, Dean.” He says it like the words are tearing themselves out of his throat. Like he can’t hold back.

Oh Fuck.

Dean’s heart is beating too hard, too fast. Shit, this might be a heart attack. His mechanical breathing not enough to make his brain work. “What the fuck, Sammy? What’s wrong with you?” The second the words leave his mouth, he regrets it. But Sam doesn’t even seem surprised that Dean’s reacting this way. He seems to be expecting a lot worse. 

He has no idea that he’s just offering Dean everything he’s ever wanted.

“I guess…” Sam shakes his head, nose flaring like it always does when he’s trying to make himself not cry. “I guess I’m just wrong. In the head.” He smiles the fakest smile Dean’s ever seen. “We’ve always known that, huh?”

He says it like a joke. And it’s another punch to the gut for Dean. Because it’s Sam repeating Dean’s words, Dean’s joke. Repeating a joke Dean has told a million times. 

_There’s something wrong with your head, Sammy. We’ve always known that, huh?_

A million times, over and over again, and Dean feels guilt drowning him with the thought that Sam is carrying it around like his own personal crucifix.

“No, Sam—Just. Stop. Don’t cry. Ok?” His mouth is dry and if Sam starts crying, Dean will give in. He’ll say yes and fuck them both up so badly, nothing will ever be right again. He wants to say that there’s nothing wrong with Sam. He wants to say that he feels it too. He wants to grab Sam by the neck and kiss him and bite him and claim him, swallow him up like a predator with a small prey. His voice refuses to give in, though. “You can’t, dude. You’re not supposed to—not for your brother.” He says instead. “It’s, you have to know it’s wrong, Sammy. It’s—“

“Disgusting. It’s what you’re saying, right?” Sam laughs, bitter. “I guess I knew that too.”

“Yeah, Sam.” He sighs. His hands are wet with nervous sweat and he tells himself that’s why he’s not touching Sam right now. Not because touching Sam would eventually escalate to… something. Something bad. Something wrong. “I can’t.” He tells himself. “I don’t even know what to do with this information, man!”

“Well, you asked.” Sam smiles, not so fake now, just sad. Broken. And it breaks whatever’s left inside Dean too. “Yeah, I know.” He says, not looking at Dean. “Don’t—don’t worry about. It’s fine. It’s not like I was thinking you’d—don’t worry about it. I know what I am.” He gets up, rubs his hands on his face and goes to his room, walking fast like he’s trying to run away. 

Dean just stands there for what feels like hours, until his heart is beating at a normal pace, until his lungs start working again,glad he’s not sharing a room with Sam, and he’s not thinking about going into Sam’s room and just, fuck, just give everything Sam wants.

Everything Dean wants too.

*

Dean doesn’t sleep. He closes his eyes and all he sees is Sam sprawled naked under him, tanned and hard, telling Dean how much he loves him. Begging Dean to do something, _anything, Dean, please, please_. So Dean keeps his eyes open and stares at the bedroom ceiling until the sun is bright outside and his head is pounding.

In the kitchen he makes himself the strongest coffee his stomach can handle. He can see Sam’s closed door from beside the prehistoric coffee maker, tries not to stare at it, but it seems to be the only thing he can focus on. It feels like shooting practice and Sam’s door has target painted on its old wood surface.

The coffee tastes like mud, but Dean chugs down his first cup, burning his tongue and making his eyes water. He’s pouring himself a second one when Sam’s door opens and he comes out, looking rumpled, and wearing the same clothes he was wearing last night. 

Dean holds his breath, almost choking on a mouthful of coffee. 

Sam stares at him for maybe for a minute, obviously trying to school himself, trying to act brave, before crossing the living room and disappearing inside the bathroom. And Dean’s the one freaking out now, his legs feel like lead and he refuses to let Sam know what this gigantic elephant in the room is doing to him. 

He takes the moment to slip on the old plastic chair and use the crooked wooden table to keep his body upright, before his legs give out like a crappy teen pop star on a crappy sad music video.

Sam comes out of the bathroom and goes straight into the kitchen, walking the longest way to the fridge, keeping himself as far from Dean as possible. He looks—like shit. Dean can see he has dark circles under his eyes and his mouth looks raw and bitten. He looks like he might be getting sick, only. Only Dean knows what sickness that is, and he’s looking for a cure himself.

“Sammy.” He says, trying to sound worried, calm, _anything_ that’s not heartbroken and breathless. “How—“

“Mornin’.” Sam’s voice is cold, and it twists something awful inside Dean’s chest. He pours himself a cup of coffee with too much milk and sugar, back to Dean, and leaves the kitchen. 

Not once looking at Dean’s face.

*

Sam locks himself in his room for the rest of the day. Dean half expects some angry chick rock to blast the house down, but Sam’s quiet. It’s Saturday, so Dean doesn’t have to go to work, and he spends the day worrying himself sick, half mother hen, half stupid in love. But Sam doesn’t leave the room.

By nightfall, Dean starts to feel antsy, walking up and down the hall like a freaking abandoned pet or something. So he makes sandwiches. Grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches because Sam loves them.And maybe they’ll... bring peace to earth or make Sam come out of the freaking room, or just give Dean something to distract himself with.

He makes too many and only has the stomach to eat one. And he stands there, beside the kitchen table, staring at a plate full of disgusting sandwiches, and wondering what the hell kind of life is that they have. When did taking care of Sammy became this? What the fuck!

He knocks on Sam’s door, feeling ridiculous. “Sam?” Sam doesn’t answer. “Sam, I know you’re there, ok? I know you don’t want to talk now. So, just—“ Dean puts his ear against the door and he can hear Sam’s breathing, loud and scared. “You have to eat something. You don’t even need to look at me. Just, come out. Eat something, please.” Silence. “I made grilled banana and peanut butter sandwiches. They are just as gross as you like and they are cooling on the kitchen table. Probably gonna attract rats.”

“I’ll be right there.” Sam calls out and Dean releases a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

Sam comes out five minutes later, when Dean’s sitting in front of the TV, with a beer at hand. He still looks sick and his hair is still a mess, but he smiles at Dean before rushing to the kitchen and Dean’s not at all surprised when he stretches his neck and looks to the kitchen and Sam’s sitting at the table, gobbling down those sandwiches like he was starving. 

Dean knows things are going to be ok. 

They’ll be just fine.

*

Dean dreams of Mom.

He didn’t see her burning, but Dad talked about it enough that his imagination painted a very realistic picture.

The room is collapsing around them, flames clinging around his legs like vine and she screams at him, angry, her face framed by hair and fire. 

“He’s your brother! How could you, Dean? He’s just a baby!” Her tone voice is high like a banshee’s, not at all like Dean remembers and she keeps trying to pull him into the fire with her. To drown him on it like the fire’s holy water and he’s a demon.

He wakes up with a startled gasp, sheets tangled around his legs. He’s shaking and can’t stop crying.

_Your brother, Dean._

*

They get better. But not by much. The rest of the week is the worst and most awkward week of Dean’s life. It’s even worse than time Dad caught him jerking off in the bathroom when he was twelve and they had _The Talk_ , with Dad stammering about condoms and bees,while Dean hid his face in his hands. 

It’s worse because it’s Sammy. Who acts like Dean’s a stranger. And Dean keeps getting urges to scream “You caused this! You opened the Pandora’s Box!”, but that would be too much hypocrisy even for Dean, they are both drowning on dry land. Sam was just the one brave enough to say it. Or stupid enough. Dean’s not sure which one it is.But they don’t talk about it. Ever. It’s Fight Club with incest. And Sam is obviously trying to pretend nothing happened, but the effort is pointless, with the way he won’t look at Dean in the eye, or the way he looks like he hasn’t slept in months, or even the way he seemed to have forgotten the correct response to “Bitch.”

He doesn’t start conversations anymore, doesn’t talk about the books he’s reading, doesn’t say anything unless Dean talks first. It only makes everything shittier. Sam looks like what’s left of a poor sad fellow after a bad breakup, and the weight inside Dean’s head won’t stop yelling at him to fix it. To fuck Sam into the couch until he looks blessed and happy, instead of scared and sad. 

So Dean’s more than happy when Dad comes back and two days later he and Dean leave to catch a werewolf, leaving Sam behind.

*

The werewolf is easy to track and kill. It’s been attacking people in Lowell, Massachusetts, leaving behind open chests with no heart and a lot of terrified people. It takes them two days to drive there, three hours to ask around and figure out where it’s coming from. And that night, they corner it inside an abandoned house and Dad kills it with one shot.

They go to a bar later, Dad still high on a successful hunt and Dean still restless, thinking about Sam and scared shitless of Dad ever finding out, looking for a distraction.

The distraction, when it comes, is a waitress called Katy. She flirts shamelessly with him, gives him a full view inside her shirt when she brings him a beer and when she smiles, she has dimples.

He fucks her in the alley behind the bar, her legs wrapped around him as he drives hard and fast into her. She manages to come twice, his thumb pressing on her clit, before Dean comes with a grunt, all the knots inside him loosening and leaving him sated and relaxed.

Dad gives him a half amused shake of the head when he comes back inside, hands Dean a beer and doesn’t say anything.

He’s feeling good, even moving his head along with whatever crap they are playing at the bar, and the feeling sticks with him until much later, when he’s brushing his teeth at the mold infested bathroom of their motel room before going to sleep. That’s when he sees the red bite mark on his neck.

“Son of a bitch.” he curses, spitting toothpaste everywhere. In the heat of the moment, he didn’t even notice Katy was biting him. Doesn’t she know anything about random fucks? “Son a bitch!”

He washes his mouth quickly, grabs a bunch of toilet paper and soaks it with freezing water, pressing it against his neck, praying for the marks to disappear, even though he knows they’ll stay there for a few days. Just his luck.

“Too late now, son.” Dad says from the bathroom door, smirking. “Should’ve known better than to let her bite you.”

“I know.” He grumbles.

“Are you done here? I want to shower.”

“Yeah.” Dean throws the paper in the trash. “I’m done.”

*

When they get back, it’s Friday afternoon, sun high in the sky and not even a small breeze to cut the hot air.

Sam’s in the kitchen, books and paper occupying the whole table, a concentrated look on his face. Dean sort of wants to kiss the top of his head. He sort of wants to kiss every other part too. But he doesn’t.

Sam looks up when they come in, and he smiles at Dean. A small, but real smile and Dean grins back, heart beating faster and lungs contracting. 

“Hey, Dean.” Sam’s smile is bigger this time.

“Hey, Sammy.” And then Sam’s face shuts down completely, going hard and hurt. “Wha—“

“Sam, get the rest of stuff out of the trunk.” Dad says going to the fridge, nodding towards the door. 

“Yes, sir.” Sam says automatically, getting up from the table and walking past Dean like he’s not even there.

By the time Sam gets back inside with the rest of stuff they got at Caleb’s after the werewolf, Dean is piling up the dirty laundry by the bathroom door and Dad’s at their tiny dinner table, taking the guns apart to clean and oil them. 

Sam puts the stuff by Dad’s chair and goes back to the kitchen. Dean can see him hunched over the books, but can’t see his face, and he’s quietly freaking out. He obviously did something in between coming inside the kitchen and Sam going out. He’s trying to figure out what it was that twisted Sam’s panties, when he looks inside the bathroom and sees his reflection looking back on the mirror. 

And the purple bite mark on his neck that chick left him with. It’s not even that visible, but Sam obviously noticed it. No wonder Sam shut down like that. He’d be upset too if Sam came home with a bite mark or a hickey. Hell, he’d be _pissed_. He understands what Sam is feeling, but he wishes Sam had better self control. This isn’t easy on any of them and Sam is only making things worse.

Plus, it’s pretty pathetic to feel like he was cheating on Sam. 

“We’ll need to do laundry soon.” Dean tells his dad, to distract himself. “Preferably tomorrow.”

“It’s a good idea, I’m almost out of clean pants.” Dad says, taking the Glock apart with practiced ease. “Sam can go with you. Just don’t let him do the pouring of anything.” 

He tries to think of a joke, but his mind draws a blank.

*

The car smells like dirty laundry and leather. Sam’s fidgeting at his side, picking at the hole on his jeans. Dean’s nervous too, but he doesn’t want to show it. He refuses to apologize, because he didn’t technically do anything wrong. And maybe this will help Sam detach and move on. Find someone to date, some chick with a good rack. Or—some guy.

There’s a twist inside his chest that screams at the image of Sam with anyone else.And he ignores the urge to park anywhere and go down on Sam, to nose his cock and swallow it down as far as Dean can take it, to choke on it until Sam comes hard and messy all over his face, blunt nails scraping his head and the smell of Sam strong and heavy. 

It’s still surprising sometimes, how fucked up Dean is. 

“I’m sorry.” Sam blurts out. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“What?” he asks, because it’s better than saying what he was really thinking. 

“It’s none of my business what you do with—“ Sam lets out a breath. “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t take it out on you just because I’m. You know.”

“Yeah. It’s not your fault, man. It’s a shitty situation.” Sam still looks scared and Dean wants to bang his head against the wheel. “It’s fine, dude. Forget it.” 

Sam nods, and the rest of the drive is quiet, the car packed full with all the things Dean refuses to say.

*

That night, Dean can hear Sam walking around the house, up and down the hall. And he aches everywhere. He feels like Sam’s distress is attacking him.

He spends the whole night half dreading, half hoping for Sam to barge into his room and do something.

Sam doesn’t.

*

In December, Dean gets a job at a gas station not too far from the house they are renting and Dad leaves for another hunt. Dean’s working the graveyard shift, and he spends most of his time eating candy and watching crappy movies on an ancient blue and white TV. 

He thinks about what he’d do if someone tried to rob the place at gun point, if he’d be the hero or if he’d steal a share too, he thinks about what car parts he could buy if he saved all his money, he organizes the candy, reads all the skin mags and mixes Pop Rocks with Coke; he tries and tries, but nothing distracts him. Any second without absolute focus on something else and Sam floods his head. Because even when Dean’s not spending all his free time with Sam, he’s still the only thing Dean thinks about. 

There’s a kid that comes in every night around three. He’s about Sam’s age, if not younger, and has similar boy band hair, but he’s not as tall and not as tanned. He avoids eye contact and pays in change. 

And that’s when Dean really starts to go crazy.

Dean can’t help but stare at him every time he comes in. The kid always buys those microwave burgers that taste like cardboard paper and whatever soda is the cheapest, and sits just outside, by the curb, to eat it. He’s skinny as hell too, never wears a good coat, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s some kind of baby hooker. 

He looks enough like Sammy that Dean starts getting ideas.

About how much money he can afford in order to spend the night fucking the kid, about taking him somewhere safe and warm and pretend he’s someone else. 

He thinks and thinks until his brain hurts and he feels guilty when he gets home to Sam’s smiles, to Sam listening to shitty pop rock, to Sam getting ready for school, to Sam trying so hard to be normal. And it only makes Dean fell shittier.

*

“What’s your name, kid?” Dean’s pretending to take a cigarette break, even though you’re not supposed to smoke at gas stations. He just needed an excuse to come out.

“Call me Chad.”

Dean snorts. “Is that your real name?”

The kid looks up and smiles. He doesn’t have dimples and his eyes are blue, but he has the right kind of mouth. Small and pink that stretches in a big bright smile. “No.” he says. 

“Right.” Dean fiddles with the cigarette pack. “Is there any point in asking your real age?”

“No.” he says again. “You can ask other stuff, though.”

“Like what?” 

“Like what I’m willing to do and how much.” His voice is calm, matter-of-fact, like it’s the sort of thing he says all the time. And Dean doesn’t know if the rush of heat he feels is anger or arousal. 

“Of course.” He says, voice cracking a little. He doesn’t say anything else and the kid doesn’t offer anything else that night. 

But through the next night, _Chad_ seems to have decided to tease the hell out of Dean. And he’s good at it too, just the right amount of shy and slutty to make Dean hard. 

“Shit.” He breathes, once the Chad has bought for his food and has left. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He waits until he’s sure the kid is done eating before coming out. He takes twenty dollars out of his wallet and walks around, to the back part of the building. And Chad’s smart enough to know what Dean means. As soon as Dean’s back touch the brick wall, the kid is there.

Dean shoves the money inside Chad’s too thin coat and says “Suck me.” And Chad goes down like the pro he obviously is, he licks and sucks and it’s just the right amount of pressure and the right amount spit to make Dean’s knees feel like rubber. 

And on his knees, with his eyes closed and mouth stretched around Dean’s cock, his throat around the head, he looks _a lot_ like Sam. Dean comes way too fast, ashamed and terrified of how far he’s willing to go with this twisted thing inside him. 

Chad sucks Dean off four more times the next few days, before Dad comes back and they have to move again. 

*

“Do you think it’ll ever go away?” Sam asks him one night, when they are on watch and Dad’s snores are coming from inside his tent, loud and strong enough to scare any interested animals.

Dean doesn’t have to ask to know what Sam’s asking about.

“I don’t know.” He says, poking the fire and thinking _Soon, please_. “I don’t know, Sammy.”

*

On Dean’s twenty first birthday, Sam gives him a new leather strap with protection symbols carved into it for his amulet, and a bottle of scotch that Dad pointedly pretends not to see. 

He asks Dean that day if there’s anything else he wants for his birthday. He looks so honest and open, with a big dimpled smile on his face that Dean’s almost tempted to ask for something Sam’s certainly not ready to give.

“Nah, Sammy.” He says. “This is awesome.”

Sam hugs him then, all octopus arms and hot skin. And Dean thinks no one will ever get the hang of hugging like Sam does. Like he’s going to crush you under his weight and you won’t want anything else, like there’ll never be anything else.

It takes hours for Dean’s heart to stop hammering inside his chest, and days for his breath to normalize again.

*

The first time Dean and Sam slept in separate beds, it was the summer after Sam turned five and Dad had just told Dean that Sammy would never learn to be brave if Dean kept being brave for him, that Sam should sleep alone sometimes. He didn’t like it, but he still tucked Sam in and still said no when he asked Dean to stay.

They didn’t sleep much that night, because Sam kept crying into his pillow and Dean couldn’t sleep when Sam was upset. Sam didn’t speak to him the whole day next day, didn’t even want to play. But Dad had said Sammy _needed_ to be brave, so Dean played alone.

The next night, they slept side by side on the backseat while Dad drove them to Uncle Bobby’s, to stay a week. And Dean was so happy to have Sammy again that he could sleep in the car every night.

Sam seemed less angry at him when they got to Uncle Bobby’s, played with Dean and watched TV while Dad and Uncle Bobby talked in whispers in the other room about some Bad Thing. But at bed time, after Dad had left, Dean was brushing his teeth when he heard Sam tell Bobby “Dean doesn’t like to sleep with me anymore. Can I sleep on the couch?”

Dean didn’t hear what Bobby answered, but when he came out of the bathroom, Sammy was laying on a green cot stacked high with folded duvets. 

Dean thinks sometimes about Sam’s quiet voice that night. And he thinks that was the first time he broke Sam’s heart for doing the right thing. It seems to be his pattern. 

*

By May Sam’s almost like he used to be. He’s smiling a lot more now and he managed a gigantic monologue about some really boring book before Dean burst out with “Holy crap! You’re such a geek!” and they both laughed. It’s awesome. 

Except for that part inside Dean that seems to be growing, that part inside him that gives him the most vivid dreams about finger fucking Sam, that makes him hard with the smell of Sam’s sweat. That part Dean has been trying hard to bury.

They move to Sacramento and Sam spends the whole time bitching to Dean about school and friends, even though they are moving for a good reason and the one who suggested it was Dad, who’s driving his truck and _not having to listen_ to Sam’s complains. And it’s so normal, so _Sam_ , that it makes Dean feel like he took a round of salt to the chest. 

It’s not the first time they move so close the end of the school year, and not the first time Sam bitches about it, but there’s something else in his tone that makes Dean’s blood boil. Dean’s pretty sure Sam had to leave behind a girlfriend. And isn’t that freaking awesome? Dean doesn’t know what to do with all the images his brain keeps feeding him. Sam, tanned and hard, Sam fucking into some preppy cheerleader or some nerdy Spelling champion with glasses and big boobs in tight cat sweaters. Or some closeted jock, fucking Sam in the showers after everyone’s left after soccer practice.

He doesn’t say anything while Sam’s bitching. He rubs his own mouth and scratches his head and tightens his fists hands around the wheel, until his fingers feel numb. He’s pissed and he wants to—something. Wants to beat someone up, wants to tie Sam to a bed and keep him there, wants and wants until he feels like he’s actually losing his mind. 

He had hoped Sam would get over it. That Sam could get rid of this insanity or whatever the hell it was that made them like this. He had hoped Sam didn’t have to live with this, but. It’s just too fast. 

Sam was gonna succeed. Sam’s pulling away, moving on and Dean’s still left behind, breathless and scared shitless and so freaking alone.

It was honest to God killing Dean.

*

When Sam was a three, his favorite game was Hide and Seek. It was the only thing they could do locked inside a motel room. And like any toddler, Sam sucked at it. He wasn’t very creative yet, and always chose to hide under the bed or under the table. He giggled too. Loud enough to tip Dean off his location in under ten seconds.

It still managed to be the best thing in Dean’s world then. To pretend not to hear Sam’s giggle and ‘wonder’ out loud about how amazing it was that Sam had managed to disappear, just to hear Sam giggling louder. 

Actually, the best thing was to catch him. Because instead of running away, Sam would throw himself into Dean’s arms and hug him. And Dean would say “Found ya, Sammy,” while Sam laughed.

*

Pastor Jim calls one morning, and Dad leaves within hours. Dean knows it’s about The Thing That Killed Mom, but he still denies it when Sam bitches about it. Dad knows what he’s doing.

“You know one of these days we’ll get a call from one of Dad’s hunting buddies telling us Dad’s—“

“Stop it, Sam.” Dean barks. “Dad knows how to take care of himself.”

“Right, of course. I forgot Dad was invincible.” Sam deadpans. “You know what? It’s finals week. I don’t need this crap right now.”

Dean wants to punch him, but he knows Sam’s worried. Dean’s worried too. He’s worried Dad will do the suicide by vengeance, or he’ll disappear and they’ll never know what happened. He’s fucking worried too.

“Just shut your pie hole.”

*

He dreams about fucking Sam in the Impala. The windows are rolled open and there’s a cold breeze coming in, even though they seem to have parked in the middle of the desert. 

Sam’s naked, his breath damp and hot on Dean’s neck while he keeps begging Dean to fuck him harder, faster, faster and laughing as Dean keeps roaming his hands, touching Sam everywhere he can reach.

Dean wakes up with his cock softening and come sticking to his boxers.

*

Dean’s full of restless energy. He’s been stuck inside a small and moldy apartment with Sam, who broods and complains and studies and walks around in pajamas, muttering about History and Calculus. And Dean has spent so much time under the Impala, he’s already fixed everything that needed to be fixed and a bunch of other crap that didn’t even need it. His baby will end up with a complex.

So before Sam comes back from school and starts another round of too much studying, Dean goes out to the nearest bar he can find, which is a block away from where they’re staying. It’s a sports bar, bursting with college students with too white smiles and too much beer in them. Dean’s not in the mood for people, but he still sits at the bar and knocks down enough tequila shots to make himself nice and friendly, and flirts shamelessly with anyone who’ll give him the time of day. Just to give him something to do that isn’t watching Sammy.

He still leaves the bar before midnight, because he actually _wants_ to watch Sam. And he’s drunk enough that he doesn’t feel like a complete creeper, wanting to sit and watch Sam doing whatever the hell Sam might be doing. Studying, eating, sleeping, screaming about Dad—fuck, Dean’s up for watching while Sam watches a Lifetime movie. And Dean hates those weepy people with weird haircuts.

Dean hasn’t been this drunk ever since Sam was thirteen and got knocked out by a ghost and Dean was scared shitless, had honestly thought Sam was going to die. 

It’s weird that he’s feeling like that now. Like Sam could slip away at any moment.

*

He’s got a pocket full of napkins with scribbled telephone numbers, and the world is spinning nicely around him when he gets back. Sam's watching the original King Kong and eating Cocoa Puffs out of the box. 

“You are drunk.” Sam says when Dean sits on the couch, not even looking away from the TV. “And you smell like smoke.”

“I smell like awesome, Sammy.” He says, stealing the box from Sam’s hands. “You wish you were this manly.”

“I’m sure I’ll get over it soon.”

“I thought you’d be studying and weeping over your books or something.” He says, around a mouthful of cereal. He thinks some might have fallen off his mouth and to his shirt.

“You’re disgusting.” Sam informs him, making a face. “School’s over. Today was my last day.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? We’d go out and celebrate! Drink!”

“You already celebrated enough for both of us.” Sam says. “The last thing I wanted today was to spend the night watching—” he stops, abruptly. “Plus Dad hasn’t called in a while. I don’t really feel like celebrating.”

“He’s not supposed to call ‘til tomorrow.” Dean smiles. “You were totally gonna say som’thing else there, right?” 

And Sam’s face goes bright red, his blush creeping down his neck and disappearing under his shirt. Dean’s fascinated. Sam fidgets and squirms like there’s ants crawling up his back and Dean thinks about taking Sam’s shirt of and seeing what’s going on under there, to roam his hands until Sam’s skin is flushed everywhere.

“Stop it.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and deep, and it goes straight to Dean’s dick. “Stop staring at me, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t say anything. His mouth is dry and he doesn’t think before he rubs a hand on Sam’s neck. 

Sam jumps a little. “What—“ He swallows hard. “What’re you doing?”

“Just let me.” He whispers and Sam just stares at him. “Let me.”

Sam’s neck is warm and his hair is soft under Dean’s fingers when they kiss. His mouth is hot and his tongue tastes like sugary chocolate and Dean’s an instant addict. He seems to be everywhere around Dean, fills all the space with his smell and his tongue inside Dean’s mouth, making him more high than he’s ever been before.

“I thought you didn’t want this. Me.” Sam whispers, his breath against Dean’s mouth. 

Dean kisses him again, deep and demanding. And then has to back away, to laugh. He’s kissing Sam and feels giddy with it. For the first time in years, Dean feels like he can breathe.

“You really are drunk, huh?” Sam laughs. 

“Yeah. Had to. Get drunk.” Dean huffs. “Otherwise would never—“ _be brave enough to do it_ , he thinks. Never have taken what Sam offered freely long ago. “Dunno, bring myself to. Liquid courage, I guess.” He tries kissing again, but Sam goes still, eyes wide.

“What? What did you just say?”

“What did I just say?” Dean’s mind is fuzzy, all he can seem to understand is that Sam is suddenly disentangling and getting up. “Sammy—“

“You’re doing this because, what? Is this—Are you doing me a favor?”

What?

“Say something!”He’s angry now, moving his hands around like he wants to punch Dean. He looks so far away.

“No, Sammy. It’s just—“ He scratches his head. If he were less drunk, he could say everything he wanted. He could say so much, just give Sam the truth, but the words are knocking against each other inside his head. And Dean’s too much of a coward to say it properly, like Sam needs to hear. “C’mon, man.”

“Do you even—even want me? At all?”

Dean should say yes. _Yes!_ He tries to nod, but everything spins around him when he moves too quickly. “I didn’t mean to do this. I thought you’d be happy.” He mumbles instead, and by the look on Sam’s face, there’s nothing he could have said that was worse than that. 

“Don’t do me any favors!” Sam shouts now, loud and booming, like he’s fighting with Dad. Dean can see he’s crying too. 

“Sammy, just sit down, ok?” Dean needs to explain, needs Sam to stop crying, needs to tell him everything. He needs to fix this. “I’m sorry.”

Sam doesn’t sit. He stands there, fuming, tears rolling down his face, and Dean feels like he’s been stabbed. 

“I’m sorry, Sammy.” He stretches his hand to grab at Sam’s shirt, but Sam recoils like a small animal that’s been kicked too many times. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry.” Sam whispers, crossing his arms, all fight gone. He sounds like he’s five again. “Just stop.” He leaves the room, without making any noise, without stomping and without banging any doors. He’s quiet. It’s what he does when he’s too hurt and upset. Dean feels like a dick.

“I’ll explain it better when. Tomorrow.” He calls, and he thinks he might be slurring. “Sammy, tomorrow, ok?”

*

Dean wakes up to Sam shaking him what feels like seconds later, but the room is bright and he can see the sunlight escaping through the curtains. He makes Dean drink a glass of water and sits by Dean’s legs, a faint noise of Cocoa Puffs being crushed under him.

“I guess I am too stupid for my own good.”Sam says, quietly. “It’s not fair, you know. You can’t go messing with my head just ‘cause you feel sorry for your freak of a little brother.”

Dean closes his eyes, the light staring to hurt his head and tries to put into words just how wrong Sam is. “I’ll do anything for you.” He slurs. And he must be falling asleep again when he feels his brother kiss him on the lips.

“I’m not gonna let you do that to yourself.” Sam says.

 

*

Dean wakes up again to Dad kicking his foot. The sun is higher on the sky now and there must be a rock or something stuck inside Dean’s head because, what the hell! He only remembers his first six shots. His head feels like he drowned in tequila. He hopes he didn’t puke anywhere.

“You have one hour to clean yourself up, pack and be ready to hit the road.” Dad says, and he doesn’t look angry like he usually looks after coming back from The Thing That Killed Mom hunts. He just looks pissed at Dean. “If you’re gonna hurl, do it now before we get going. If you do it in the car, I’ll make you walk the whole way.”

Dean grumbles and gets up. The room is not spinning as he thought it would be, but his head is pounding _hard_ and his stomach is threatening to do a Linda Blair. 

“Sam!” Dad calls and Dean almost shushes him, before thinking it over and deciding not to get his ass kicked today. “Start packing!”

“I can’t!” Sam calls back, and Dean closes the bathroom door before they start a screaming match. “I have finals next week, can’t miss it.” Dad says something Dean can’t catch and Sam answers with “Sir, I’d have to stay for summer school if I missed it.”

Dean turns on the shower, steps out of his clothes, cold water making him feel less like a corpse, and more like hung over.

*

Dean’s mind always had a hard time understanding Sam’s anger and even a harder time understanding Sam’s sadness. It seemed that every time Sam was feeling one the two, Dean’s brain classified it as hate. Logically, he knew what Sam was feeling, could classify it and tuck away neatly for future studies. 

He was awesome at cracking Sam’s emotional codes. Not as awesome as he once thought, but awesome enough to know which most of them were and where to put them.

It was just that when it was directed at Dean, anything negative was written down as hate. When that happened, all systems would go down, everything would scramble and Dean’s actions were messy and his own emotions kept stopping his rational side from taking over and cleaning everything up.

*

They are two hours away from Sacramento, Dad driving up front in his truck and Dean in the Impala, belly full of pancakes and bacon, the best hangover food, when it all rushes back to him, quick and sharp like a punch to the nose. 

Dean kissed his brother last night. He kissed Sam and still managed to fuck it up enough that Sam thinks Dean doesn’t want him. Fuck! Jesus Christ!

He starts making a speech in his head, something to tell Sam when he gets back, or maybe on the phone. He desperately thinks of all the ways he can make Sam believe him, of all the things Dean can promise and has to pull through. And then he thinks. Sam told him school was over last night. Sam told Dad he had to stay behind because he had finals. 

Sam lied.

His grip is white knuckled on the steering wheel and his brain keeps supplying him with images and ideas of all the horrible things Sam might be doing alone, of all the things Sam might be planning and he doesn’t even realize he’s turning the car around, going back to Sacramento, foot on the gas, until almost crashes into a minivan and disrupts the traffic and can’t be bothered to give a fuck.

He thinks Sam might have said goodbye last night, but he’s not sure, and not being sure is making his heart pound, freaking terrified. 

“Son of a bitch.”

Dad’s honking right behind him, trying to give the signal for Dean to stop, but Dean’s trying to concentrate on the road. He doesn’t want to think of anything else. He doesn’t want to think of all the time they lost by stopping at a diner for fucking pancakes. He doesn’t want to think that Sam might be in it just as badly as Dean and holy shit, he doesn’t want to think of what he’d do if he were in Sam’s shoes. 

If he thought Sam had tried to sacrifice himself for Dean’s sickness. If he had told Sam and Sam had rejected him.

He drives as fast as he can.

*

Dean forgets sometimes that Sam is the younger one, that Sam is the one who’s a teenager, full of hormones and confused about everything.

He helped raise Sam, taught Sam everything he knows, but still. He forgets it because Sam is the mature one, the intelligent one, the one who knows the answers and the one who observes everything. Dean might be awesome, but Sam. Sam is the friggin’ best one between them. 

Dean doesn’t know how much he’s fucking up by forgetting how young and scared Sam is, how much he’s fucking up until it’s too late. 

*

He pulls into a curb next the apartment building, tires screeching. He hears Dad’s truck coming closer, Dad honking and calling for him, but he’s too upset to stop and too scared to explain. 

Turns out it was pointless to run so fast. The apartment is dark and empty.

“Sam!” he calls, “Sammy?” Silence.

His knees start to buckle, but he looks around anyway. The salt lines are untouched, Sam’s stuff is gone, his duffle is no longer under the bed and his books are gone from the bedside table. 

Dad pulls him by the shirt while he’s rooting under the bed.

“Dean!” he shakes Dean a little and Dean would laugh if he didn’t feel like crying. “What’s going on?”

“Sam’s done with school.” His teeth are clacking and he’s not even cold. “I think—“Dean disentangles from Dad’s hold and starts looking under his own bed for the coffee can with the emergency cash. It’s empty. “I think Sam ran away.”

Dad starts saying something but Dean’s not paying attention. He looks around the apartment, and he knows Dad’s looking too, trashing it for clues, for Sam hiding under the table, for anything that tells them how and where to get Sam back. 

There’s a small yellow note stuck to the fridge and Dean’s hands are weirdly steady when he takes it.It’s Sam’s handwriting. With the T’s crossed twice, Sam’s made up signal that means he wrote it and no one forced him to. It was only for emergencies.

_I don’t want to be a hunter. I’m sorry.  
Sam_

*

Dean was seventeen the first time Sam almost died on a hunt. 

They were hunting the ghost of a woman who was ripping people to shreds. She was buried in a small cemetery, and Sam was supposed to stay in the car and watch for guards or anyone who might not like that Dean and Dad were doing some grave desecration. 

So when Dean and Dad got back to the car, covered in dirt and smelling like smoke, they expected to see Sam sitting there, looking bored and maybe even distracted by a book. They didn’t expect to see the passenger’s window broken, blood and grass on the ground. They didn’t expect to see Sam sprawled on the floor a few feet away, shirt ripped and blood painting his chest. 

Dad drove them to the hospital, Dean in the backseat, hands shaking, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to wake Sam up, cursing and pleading. “Sammy, wake up. It’s not that bad. C’mon, Sam!” But Sam wasn’t moving, was barely breathing.

Dean thought then, that it was the worst thing he’d ever have to live through. 

He didn’t know yet what six years without Sam would be like.

*

**Two**

*

Dean isn’t big on loving people. He generally likes them, sure. From a distance. He just wasn’t raised for it, having friends and knowing neighbors, and knowing the names of the waitresses or settling down in a house with a porch swing and a white picket fence. He loves his father, and all the memories of his mother. And he thinks he got pretty close to it with Cassie, before he started dreaming of Sam again and just couldn’t anymore.

It’s different, though, with Sam. This thing is bigger and stronger than anything Dean’s ever felt, destructive and incredible. He hasn’t seen Sam in six years now and his absence is still like a phantom limb. That’s the thing about losing something so big. The ache never fucking goes away. And you live regretting all the shit you ever did and all the times you were stupid enough to say no.

If Dean could go back, he’d take everything. He would let Sam give him anything he wanted. Worse than missing Sam, worse than being in love with your little brother, is knowing you would consume him if given another chance. Dean’s selfish and greedy. He would take Sam apart and wouldn’t think twice. He would breathe in Sam and never do anything else--if only he was offered again. 

*

Dean always thought that, somehow, Dad would go down with the Thing That Killed Mom. He tried not to think about it, never spoke of it out loud like Sam used to. Sam yelled and raged and hinted, because Sam never knew how to keep his anger to himself. They both knew that it could happen, that Dad could go down taking the son of a bitch who took Mom. 

But Dean used to think that maybe, just maybe, if it happened, he’d have Sam. 

When it happened, Dean was pinned against a wall and Dad was fighting against the Yellow Eyed son of a bitch inside him. It didn’t last long. One minute, the demon was talking about going after _darling little Sammy_ and trying to rip Dean apart, and the next minute, John was swallowing a bullet from the Colt and dying on the floor of an old cabin.

*

Dean turns twenty seven on a chilly Tuesday in San Francisco. 

Dean hates big cities, where no one pays attention to the scary crap happening to anyone else, because scary crap happens all the time. Where it’s too easy for murderers and ghosts to blend in the dark with all other monsters. Where research takes longer and places are harder to break into.

His back aches from being thrown around by an angry spirit, and he’s thinking about getting as far away from this city as possible. It doesn’t help that the city is filled with vegans either. It’s unnatural and makes Dean crave bacon cheeseburgers and chili fries, and a steak so rare that a good vet could bring it back to life.

He’s walking around, looking for a place that serves coffee and burgers, cursing how far he’ll have to walk to get back to the Impala when he sees Sam. It’s far away enough that, if it were anyone else, Dean’d have to squint to recognize him, but it’s Sam, and Dean would know him anywhere. 

His heart tries to leap out of his chest, because that’s Sammy. He’s a lot taller and a lot broader, but he still has that same boy band hair, and he’s just walking down the street like he’s not the thing Dean’s wanted most to see in the world. 

“Sam!”

Sam keeps walking, friggin’ long legs, and Dean runs after him as fast as he can, his banged up knees squeaking hard and burning, but that’s Sam and Dean’s legs would have to give out for him to stop running.

“Sam!” He yells again and this time Sam stops. He freezes in the middle of the sidewalk, and even from a distance, Dean can see his shoulders going tense and his back snapping straight. “Sam!”

Sam turns around and holy shit, holy fucking shit that’s _Sam_. Dean stops a few feet from him, legs burning and heart pounding, and he doesn’t know what to do anymore. He'd spent the last six years looking for Sam and now that he's found him, he doesn’t even know what to do first. He wants to hug Sam, and punch his face in and kiss him breathless, but all he can do is stare and stare, because it’s _Sammy_. 

“Dean.” Sam says, smiling, his voice the same as it was when he was seventeen, his face no longer baby soft and skinny, but he’s still the same and his dimples are still the same, and Dean tries really hard not to start crying like a little bitch right then and there. “Oh my God, Dean!” Sam hugs him then, longs limbs and the same octopus arms and tight squeeze that always made Dean ridiculously happy.

“Holy shit, Sammy.” Dean squeezes back. Sam smells like sweat and soap, and the familiarity of it hits Dean like a blow to the stomach. He feels like his knees are gonna give under him and he’ll bring them both down, but he can’t, just can’t yet, stop hugging.

“Dean, I—“ Sam starts shaking then, hiccupping dry sobs in the middle of the street, face buried on Dean’s neck. Of course Sam would be the first to cry. Of course. Dean smiles against Sam’s hair.

“Found ya, Sammy,” he whispers and Sam laughs a wet laugh that echoes inside Dean’s chest. 

*

After Dad died, Dean gave him a hunter’s burial. He poured all the salt he had on stock and a gallon of gasoline and set him on fire. He drove for days after, until his eyes were dry and he had empty bottles of Jack riding shotgun. He drove until he couldn’t anymore. 

On the fourth night, he parked the Impala in the middle of nowhere and thought long and hard about doing a Thelma and Louise with his baby. Just him and the Impala over the edge of a cliff. He thought long and hard about apples and trees and maybe swallowing a bullet himself. 

He drank every last drop of booze he had, but still didn’t black out, not even for a while. He was drunk out of his fucking mind and his father was dead and the demon was dead and there was nothing to keep Dean going. ‘Cause Dean was never really good at being alone and he always did the stupidest shit when he had nothing else to do.

That was the first and only time Dean saw Sam outside of a dream ever since Sam left. 

It was a hallucination, hazy against the first rays of sunlight, unsubstantial, and Sam looked young, fourteen maybe, with too-long hair and ugly shirt. He was on the backseat, chin resting on his knee, a ridiculously giant book by his side. He looked unbelievably sad, staring at the empty bottle on Dean’s lap, that hurt expression he always had when Dean drank too much while Dad was on a hunting trip.

“What about me?” The Sam hallucination whispered, and he sounded petulant and young, and like he was about to cry, “I’m still alive, Dean. You _know_ I’m alive.”

Dean had to get out to throw up then, knees hitting the dirt and hands scrambling to keep him from going face first on the ground, stomach hurting and lungs contracting painfully. 

When he got back inside, mouth sour and face wet, he was alone again. 

*

Sam’s apartment is small. Smaller than some places they’d lived in when they were kids. But it’s bright and full of sunlight, with mismatched furniture and framed movie posters. It’s very much _Sam_ , books piled everywhere and so ridiculously normal that it makes Dean’s blood burn with something he couldn’t name.

He’s taking off his jacket and trying to figure out how he feels about being here when he sees a cat. The fugliest, fattest yellow cat Dean has ever seen in his life, sleeping in a patch of sunlight by the couch. 

Sam puts his keys in a glass bowl on the table by the couch; he looks awkward, like he doesn’t know what to do or what to say to Dean now that the weepy part is done. “This is where I live.” He says, scratching the back of his head. 

“Dude,” Dean says, pointing to the ugly cat, “You have a cat. A really ugly cat, holy shit.”

Sam laughs a genuine laugh. “Yeah, that’s Potato.”

“Potato?” Dean gives Sam his jacket and sits on the couch. The cat – Potato? – looks up at Dean with that disdainful look mastered by all cats before rolling over to expose her belly to the sun. 

“Well. She looked like an old potato when she was a kitten. The name stuck.” Sam takes off his own jacket and puts it on the chair where Dean’s coat lay, before disappearing into what Dean thinks might be the kitchen. He comes back with two beers and hands one to Dean, before sitting at the other end of the couch.

“You have a cat,” Dean says again, just to kill the silence. Sam looks good here, comfortable in a way Dean can’t remember seeing before. He looks like the grown up Dean fakes being. It makes him want to disappear. He thinks he might be all right now, knowing Sam is doing well. He looks at Sam’s face and knows for sure he won’t be able to let go now. Maybe ever. “A cat,” he repeats.

“Yes, Dean.” Sam frowned. “Are you still scared of cats? Potato is not like Mrs. Hino’s cat, you know. I’m sure she won’t try to scratch your face.”

“There’s so much wrong with what you just said.” The beer is just cold enough to numb the tips of his fingers, so he takes a long pull, hoping it will cool his blood down. “I’m not _scared_ of cats. That cat didn’t try to scratch my face, it wanted to claw my eyes out!” Sam laughs again and it makes Dean smile. “And—I don’t know. I always figured you’d have one of those shaggy dogs to match your shaggy self.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he looks amused. “I guess I found Potato first.”

Dean’s happy to see Sam. He’s actually genuinely happy. And completely freaked out. It’s hard to breathe inside Sam’s apartment. Everything smells like him. Like the way the room they shared used to smell when they spent more than a month in the same place. It’s constricting and it makes Dean think of all the times he had Sam sleeping on the next bed, of all the times he could’ve had Sam if he wasn’t such a _fucking_ coward. 

They finish their beers in the loudest silence Dean has ever witnessed. He’s trying to start a conversation that won’t make everything more awkward when Sam clears his throat and says, very quietly, “Dad’s dead, isn’t he?”

Dean sucks in a shaky breath, thinks that Sam will always be the bravest of either of them, and nods. “Yeah.” He clears his throat, “He went down taking the Yellow-Eyed son of a bitch.”

“Yellow-Eyed?”

“The—he was a demon. The one who killed mom,” Dean says and Sam is staring at him now. He seems to be stuck between horror and sadness, a weird contrast with Dean’s constant rage. “Yellow Eyes. He was planning something big—but Dad—“ he stops, can’t say the fucking words.

“Dad killed himself killing it,” Sam says, and it’s not a question, it’s a statement, like Sam knew and just needed Dean to confirm. Dean’s about to question him on his certainty, but Sam starts to cry. Big, silent tears that make him look so much like the little kid he used to be that Dean has to look away. He grabs their bottles and goes into the kitchen, where he pretends not to hear Sam’s ragged breathing and grabs two more bottles. He opens one and drinks half of it before feeling brave enough to return to the living room.

Sam comes in then, his face red but dry now, and grabs the other bottle from Dean’s hand.

“I’m gonna make us some sandwiches.” Sam says, voice too calm. “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, ok.”

*

Dean never realized how much he mothered Sam until he was gone. It was in the smallest of things. Like leaving him the last pudding cup. Like stealing a book about some recently- revealed-to-the-public-eye historic event that Dean didn’t care about butmade Sam wet his pants with excitement. Like wondering if Sam’s coat was still good when they were going north in the winter. Like making him sandwiches when he was upset until Sam started associating them with comfort food.

It still made him queasy sometimes to think about how much he wanted to be part of Sam’s life. How much he wanted to make Sam happy and how much he just wanted Sam. Everything and anything Sam had to give. How much he wanted to be spread open for Sam until Sam was so deep inside him, neither of them could ever escape again.

Dean always finds new ways of being fucked up.

*

The kitchen smells like grease and bacon by the time Dean’s finished his second BLT. They ate in silence at the tiny kitchen table, while Potato tried to steal pieces of bacon from Sam’s plate. Potato’s sort of hilarious, and as soon as all the food is gone, she hops off the table and goes to the living room, like her quest for bacon was a waste of time and it was all beneath her. Dean wonders if all cats are this pompous or if it’s something about living with Sam.

“How did you find me?” Sam says then, wiping his hand with a paper napkin. 

“I—didn’t. I came here on a hunt. I was looking for a place to eat when I saw you just… walking down the street.” He laughs, and it sounds hollow even to his own ears. “I didn’t think I’d ever find you, to be honest. ‘Cause, you know--we did teach you how to hide. We just—just never thought you’d use it against me—us.”

“I didn’t run away from you, Dean, I—“ Sam rubs a hand over his face, sighing. “We both know I had to go or things would be—and anyway, I never wanted to be a hunter. I hated that life.”

Dean hears everything Sam isn’t saying. He hears the truth behind it and it makes it harder to breathe right. There’s no more danger of things being anything now. Not after so much time has passed. “Were you here this whole time?”

“Yeah. I figured you guys would think I was the furthest place away I could find, so I stayed here.” He sighs again. “And then I got a job and a life and I never left.”

“All this time.”

“Yeah.”

*

There’s a hoodie hanging by the door in the bathroom. It’s obviously too small for Sam. Dean stares at it while he brushes his teeth, and tries very hard not to think about who owns it, and what sort of relationship they have with Sam. He fails. 

*

Dean spends the night on the couch. He doesn’t sleep, too wired to be able to rest. There are too many things left unsaid, and he knows he won’t be able to mention them. Avoidance is the best way to go. Around 2am, Potato hops on his chest, curls into a ball and sleeps. 

Around 4am, Sam comes out of his bedroom. 

He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping either, and Dean knows Sam’s about to spill something. Sam always liked to have serious conversations during moments Dean should have been sleeping. He sits on the coffee table with a guilty expression and Troll Doll hair that Dean wants to mock.

“I knew Dad was dead,” Sam says and Dean wants to bolt off the couch, but he has a feeling he would get his face clawed off, so he just stares at Sam. “I had these dreams…” Sam starts explaining and Dean… Dean fucking knew, all right?

He knew Sam was one of that Yellow-Eyed bastard’s kids. He knew because Sam was the right age and had the right background and the demon loved mentioning Sam, to see Dean squirm and threaten and to see Dad go into a rage. He thought, for a long time, that Sam had already been killed. Had already gone through whatever fucked up trial Yellow Eyes was doing and had lost.

Dad was the one who said, one day when they were both drunk and pissed off, that if Sam were dead, the demon wouldn’t stop bragging, would drag Sam’s body around for them to see. It was the last time Dad talked about Sam being somewhere out there, alive. 

“…and I saw Dad shooting himself.” Sam finishes, eyes full of unshed tears. “That’s how I knew what he did. That was the last dream I had.”

“He never found you? The demon?” Dean asks mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“No, but I know he was looking for me. I think he thought the visions were gifts.” Sam looks at the amulet for a minute. “It just gave me migraines and it pissed me off.”

Dean snorts. “I don’t think demons understand the concept of gifts.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Sam asks after a beat, “You knew the demon wanted me for something?”

“We thought that, maybe,” Dean lies. He doesn’t want to give Sam the truth because he knew that that Sam would blame himself for Dad swallowing a bullet. Some days Dean can’t help but blame himself and he knows that it was all the demon’s fault. “But we never really figured out what it wanted.” 

Sam nods, looking relieved and a little freaked. Dean considers the possibility of hugging him then. Of grabbing Sam and never letting go, of burying his face in Sam’s neck until everything feels less shitty.

Sam nods again and goes back to his room. Dean spends the rest of the night thinking about the hoodie in the bathroom and if its owner ever gets to taste the curve of Sam’s neck.

*

Dean never gave Sam _The Talk_ , never taught Sam how to jerk off and never did anything beyond buying him lotion and tissues. It was the unspoken rule of two teenagers being forced to share small rooms. But Dean was obsessed with it for a while, with the idea of Sam jerking off. It was enough to make him come sometimes. Imagining Sam sitting in front of him, hands slippery with lotion, red dick hard and leaking, the way Sam would grunt and sigh instead of moaning, or maybe he would moan and curse. 

After Sam confessed, it got worse, because now Dean had the image of Sam moaning his name, cursing quietly for Dean to touch him. Sometimes, when Sam was in the shower, Dean had to turn up the radio or the TV volume to force himself not to listen. He already knew then that any noise would be enough to wake up something ugly in himself.

That morning, Dean turns on the TV as soon as Sam closes the bathroom door and runs to the kitchen to fight with Sam’s robot of a coffee maker. He curses himself the whole twenty minutes it takes for Sam to shower for all the images of this new Sam his brain provides.

*

Dean sleeps on Sam’s couch for almost two weeks. They don’t really talk about the big things after that. Dean feels like he’s constantly walking on eggshells around Sam. He doesn’t want to disturb Sam’s life, doesn’t want to give Sam more reasons to disappear, to run again, but he’s desperate to get under Sam’s skin. To make Sam remember all the things he liked about Dean; he’s desperate to be needed again. It’s what he’s been waiting for and he doesn’t know how to get it. 

So he sleeps on Sam’s couch and jokes with him. He buys Potato a toy with bells and feathers that's loud and annoying enough for Sam to give the most epic of bitchfaces. He goes grocery shopping and makes grilled banana and peanut butter sandwiches that make Sam grin. Sam tells him then that he tried to make it like Dean does, but he never managed and never understood what Dean’s secret was. And it’s fucking stupid, but it makes Dean think that this could be reason enough for Sam to keep him around. It’s the hope of the desperate and Dean clings to it like a motherfucker.

“It’s peanut butter, banana and butter, Sam. How can you get it wrong?” He teases around a mouthful of his perfectly sane PB&J. 

“Not just me! Not even diner cooks get it right!” Sam says, making a face at the flecks of food that fall from Dean’s mouth. “You’re disgusting.”

“I make every meal interesting.” 

Sam narrows his eyes, “I bet you put crack on these.”

“I ain’t telling.”

*

It’s sort of surprising how much Dean wants to be here. He always thought he’d want to get Sam on the road with him, to get Sam hunting with him, to spend hours inside the Impala with Sam reading at his side and talking about the most boring, weird crap he learns from stolen library books. And he does, he wants that too. But he wants this more. He wants to do whatever the fuck Sam’s doing, he wants to wake up spitting out cat hair with Potato wrapped around his neck and purring, he wants six years of information, six years of constant company to make up for. He wants to know when Sam stopped being too skinny and gangly and became a giant, so sure of his own body.

He wants to set fire to that fucking hoodie and wants to bash in the face of its owner. He wants to know who texts Sam every couple of hours. He wants to know who owns the tiny hipster sunglasses that have been sitting on the coffee table ever since Dean got here. He wants to take all of Sam’s clothes and inspect his new body. He wants to fuck Sam and get fucked by him. He wants to learn all that Sam knows about sex now. He wants to feed his addiction and he wants Sam’s longsuffering sighs at Dean’s overprotection.

Still, he feels like he’s intruding on Sam’s life. There’s no room for a hunter in a normal apple pie life. He tries telling himself that he would be happy anywhere. He would be fine just watching Sam from afar. Just knowing that Sam is alive and fine. Just watching Sam breathing and living would be enough.

It’s a lie. 

*

Bobby calls him on a Tuesday. There have been mysterious deaths in Price, Utah, and Bobby thinks it’s a couple of vampires. Few hunters still know what to do with vampires, and the guy who apparently specializes in fangy bastards broke both legs taking down a whole nest in Montana.

It’s a fifteen hour drive and Dean thinks about just saying no. He can’t, though. He calls Sam and tells him about the hunt.

Sam is silent after Dean explains, only the sound of his breathing reassuring him that Sam didn’t hang up.“Vampires, seriously?” he asks eventually.

“Yeah. They're not sparkly - don’t get your hopes up.”

“Shut up,” Sam sighs. “If you come back with both your legs broken, I’m letting Potato use your face as a scratch post,” Sam says carefully. And it’s another statement full of things unsaid. Sam wants him to come back.

“That cat loves me; she would never destroy the moneymaker, bitch.” Dean says, and Sam snorts.

“Jerk.” And he hangs up.

Dean grins for the next fifteen hours. He’s coming back.

*

Vamps always try too hard. The couple Dean finds like the leather and latex outfits with too much hair gel and fake British accents. It’s like they want to embarrass the vampire community. Dean suffers from a lot of secondhand embarrassment the couple of days it takes to find and catch them. Dean does everyone a favor and beheads them.

He ends up with a big scratch on his left knee from where he fell on the pavement, a hole in his only good slacks. 

He also gets thoroughly fucked by the bartender of the club the vamps used to find their victims. They do it in the employees-only bathroom and the guy fucks Dean with deep, hard thrusts and thankfully avoids the dirty talk some bartenders seem to enjoy.

It’s a good night, and for some reason, Dean guiltily makes sure there are no sex bruises before he drives back to Sam.

*

By May they have a pattern.

Dean sleeps on Sam’s couch sometimes for two weeks straight, sometimes for a night or two. They go out, sometimes, to whatever non-hipster vegan place Sam finds and get drunk. Some nights they stay in and eat take out and watch some truly awesome crap TV that has Sam groaning and rolling his eyes the whole time. It’s sort of awesome. But they still don’t talk about anything important, and Dean is almost fine with it.

He finds out that the owner of the hoodie and the hipster sunglasses and the grey scarf Dean finds under the couch cushions is a guy called Max. Dean never sees him, but he knows enough. He knows that Max and Sam have known each other for a while, that Max works at the bookstore with Sam and that they fuck sometimes. Dean wants to know how much exactly is _sometimes_ and he wants to know what this guy looks like. 

He also can’t help but feel like he won a race. Because if Sam never bothered to introduce them, it’s because Max is not important enough.

But by the end of the month, Dean finds out that Max is not the only person Sam’s fucking. And he’s back to being stupid with jealousy again.

*

On the second week of June, Dean has a dream of fucking Sam again. They are on the couch and it’s pouring rain in the living room. Dean can feel the cold water running on his back and dripping from the tip of his nose, and the heat from Sam’s legs wrapped around his waist. He’s looking down at Sam, who's completely dry and staring up at Dean with big eyes as Dean thrusts inside him, a slow pace that has Sam gasping and coming between them.

He wakes up hard, legs feeling like jell-o and breathing so hard it makes his throat hurt.

He leaves the next day and comes back at the end of July, scraped and bruised, but feeling like he can be around Sam again.

Sam never asks and Dean never says anything.

*

When Sam was four, Pastor Jim gave him a doll. A plush army man with big button eyes and a sewed on smile. Sam called it Berg, and kept it on the bed they shared. Dean didn’t want to say it, but he was honestly scared by it. It was creepy and crooked, and the only reason it hadn’t been thrown away yet was because Sam loved it.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean asked one day, after training. They were sweating buckets and Sam was still breathing hard, hair plastered to his forehead and sweat rolling down his neck. It was screwing with Dean’s self control. “Remember Berg?”

Sam laughed, head tossed back, throat bared. “Oh, God. Yeah! You hated him.”

“It was creepy as hell.” Dean smiled. “Whatever happened to it?”

Sam’s smiled faded a little. He looked down before answering, “Well, I couldn’t keep it. You hated him.”

*

Sam has a hickey. It’s partially hidden by the collar of his shirt, but it's bright red against Sam’s neck, and it attracts Dean’s eyes like a motherfucking shooting target. The worst thing is that it’s obvious Sam’s trying to pretend it’s not there, trying to hide it from Dean and Dean can’t really do shit about it. What’s he supposed to do? Yell at Sam for moving on? It’s been six goddamn years! Sam has the right to move on.

Except it’s sort of breaking Dean’s stupid asshole heart.

Sam is cutting his perfect organic tomatoes for the salad Dean will not eat, and all Dean can do is stand there stirring the chili and try not to stare at Sam’s hickey.

“Stop,” Sam whispers. “Stop it.”

“What? It’s not done yet,” Dean says, because the chili is not the right texture yet. “It still needs a coupla—“

“Stop staring at me, Dean.” He says it louder now, scraping the seeds off the tomato, his face flushed.

“Well, Sammy, if you don’t want people to see it, you shouldn’t let them mark you.” He tries for a joke, but Sam’s face gets redder, and he scowls. 

“When you get more than a one night stand out of it, you don’t need to hide the evidence.” Sam’s voice is hard now, nostrils flaring. “You forget that some people try for relationships.”

“So that’s what you’re doing?” Dean tries not to show he’s jealous, but by the way Sam is looking like he’s about to stab him, he thinks he’s failing at it. It’s not his right to be jealous, they both know it. “You’re in a relationship with this guy? And the other people you‘re fucking too?”

Sam gathers the tomato slices, mouth set in a line, and washes the cutting board and the knife. He looks pissed, and Dean lowers the heat, because he knows Sam’s going to pitch a fit any moment now. 

“Sammy, listen…”

“Shut up, Dean.” He says. “Just shut up!”

Dean does. He stirs the chili and watches as Sam finishes the salad, and thinks about the sixteen year old Sam and how awesome he used to be at throwing knives.

“You are such a dick!” Sam says, suddenly, putting down the salad bowl on the table with a lot more force than necessary. “You want to joke about this now?”

“You want me to apologize?” Dean says, not taking his eyes off the pan, ridiculously afraid of where this conversation might be going. “I’m sorry for staring at your freaking mauled neck.”

“It’s none of your goddamn business!” Sam is pissed now. Truly pissed and Dean wants to be too. Better pissed than jealous, but he’s not managing that. “You know—Just, don’t. This is not. This.” Sam takes a deep breath and Dean finally looks at him. He looks mostly hurt. “We both know this is a conversation we don’t want to have. We avoid this territory for a reason. Stop pretending otherwise.” 

Dean turns off the heat, but continues stirring, just to have something to do with his hands. He keeps thinking about this guy he’s never met, the one who Sam is in a _relationship_ with. He wonders again if he looks at all like Dean, and has a perverted sense of accomplishment in the possibility of this guy being just a substitute for him. 

“I just. Sammy.” Dean steps away from the pan and sits on the closest chair, before looking at Sam, who’s standing by the sink with clutched fists at his side and a closed off expression. “You’re in a relationship with this guy?”

“No.” Sam says after a beat and Dean’s heart starts beating in laughable hope. “No, I’m not in a relationship with Max, Dean.”

Dean nods because he doesn’t know what else to say. He wants to get up and kiss Sam, he wants to fuck him against the kitchen counter and he wants to suck him off until he’s choking on the taste of Sam’s come. 

“You left,” he says instead, surprising himself and by the hurt look Sam gives him, surprising Sam too. “I was in the middle of nowhere when I remembered and when I got back to the apartment, you weren’t there.” 

“Dean. Jesus, Dean. I had to leave, I—“

“I used to help change your diapers.” Dean stares at the table now. He thinks, wildly, that _this is it_ , this is the moment where he fucks up or fixes everything. “I changed one or two, but I usually made a mess with the friggin’ powder and spent hours after sneezing.”

“Dean…”

“I packed your lunch bag. I helped you with your homework. I fucking stitched you up and gave you pea soup when you were sick, because you hated the smell of tomato when you had a cold and you never liked chicken soup.” He can hear Sam’s loud breathing and Potato playing with the bell thing in the living room. And he has to take careful breaths just to keep the oxygen flowing. “I helped raise you, Sammy!”

Sam was the hardest kid Dean had ever met in his life. One moment, he was happy and laughing, and charming everyone around him with puppy eyes and dimples, and the next he would be sullen and angry, yelling and hurling words like they were knives. Dean loved every part of him.

“And I spent most of your pissy, awesome teenage years in love with you.” Dean feels like he’s shaking, but his hands are steady on the table. Sam is breathing louder now, and Dean doesn’t even have to look at him to know he’s angry. “I helped raise you and I was in love with you.”

“What? Dean, I—“

“You were sixteen and offering me everything! Just like that. And I couldn’t. You--” He rubs a hand over his face and closes his eyes. “For a long time, all I could think was _‘I’m going to ruin that kid’s life’_ because I wanted you. I wanted you to be mine. I was obsessed with you. And you were so—willing. I was so freaked, Sammy.” He stops talking then, hoping for Sam to shut him up, to start talking too. But Sam doesn’t say anything and Dean can’t look at him yet.

“And then you got drunk and made it sound like it was a sacrifice,” Sam says and Dean’s not even surprised by his bitter tone. “Get out.”

“Sammy, c’mon, just—“

“Dean, get the fuck out, or I swear I’ll shoot you.” 

He was expecting it. It’s ridiculous to pretend something’s not going to break you just because you’re expecting it, but it doesn’t stop you from hoping.

He leaves with his leather jacket, his keys and with something like lead in his lungs.

*

Dean parks the car two blocks away from Sam’s building. He doesn’t try to hide it, doesn’t pretend not to be there. He sleeps in the car and stares at Sam whenever he gets a chance.

Three days later, Bobby calls him a bouta hunt nearby. Dean goes.

*

Child ghosts are the worst. They are very talented at the art of killing and generally being creepers. It might have to do with kids’ unlimited imagination, or maybe their skill of repeating what adults do. 

Missy Adams’s ghost is really into throwing people through large glass windows when those people are trying to dig up their remains to burn.

Dean gets a big cut on his arm and a smaller one on his hip. It hurts like a bitch and they’re bleeding a lot, but Dean does the best circle of salt he can on the basement floor, around where he thinks Missy was buried, and starts digging. His shirt is sticking to his arm and it’ll be a bitch to take it off later, but Missy’s ghost is screaming and trying to get at him.

“Dude, shut up!” He tells her, “You threw me through the window! You don’t get any points for being a kid.”

She does, though. Because he finds her remains, her bones covered in dirt and what’s left of her clothes is covered in glass shards and shredded. It’ll never be easy having to burn the remains of a little kid, especially one as small as her. 

“Sorry,” he says, and sets her on fire.

*

Dad killed the ghost of a boy named Sam once. It was a few months after their Sam left and Dean was the one supposed to set the ghost’s remains – forgotten inside a fake pirate chest, still full with wooden toys and fake swords – on fire. But as soon as it showed up, Dean froze. It looked too much like their Sam when he was four - the curls and the chubby face, and the big eyes - that Dean just couldn’t do it.

Dad had to pull him away before pouring the salt and the lighter fluid in the chest and setting it on fire. That was the only time Dad ever looked freaked out after a successful hunt.

They never talked about it. And for a month after it happened, they didn’t do anything but look for Sam. They were both too scared of the possibility of Sam being dead, and too worried to talk about it.

*

It’s 1am when Dean parks the car, as close as he can from Sam’s building. He feels like shit and he could use a shower and a few days of sleep on a real, somewhat comfortable, bed but he’s going to catch a few hours of sleep and maybe catch sight of Sam going to work in the morning. He thinks this will end up being like a drug, something he has to do all the time, so his hands will stop shaking, so he can breathe properly. He’s always had a problem with controlling this thing for Sam; six years apart made no difference. Sam being angry with him makes no difference. 

It’s Sam and he’ll take what he can get.

He takes off his outer shirt and rips a long, almost clean, piece to wrap around his arm. It’s still bleeding, even though his hip has already stopped. He takes a shot from the flask in the glove compartment and lies down. Even so far from the center of town, San Francisco manages to be noisy. It’s still not as bad as New York, and not as awesome as Vegas.

He’s almost asleep when someone knocks on the window. 

“Dean!” Sam says and Dean sits up. He’s about to make up an explanation when Sam says, “What the fuck! You’re bleeding!”

He opens the window. “Little kids make awful ghosts, Sam. Little kids and pirate chests.” 

Sam just stares at him, like he’s at a loss for words, before shaking his head. “C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says, and turns around going back across the street, stalking in the direction of the building’s entrance. That’s when Dean realizes that Sam’s in pajamas.

*

The first time Dean and Dad left for a hunting trip longer than a week without Sam, Sam had just turned twelve. He spent most of his time wondering how Sam was doing and what he was doing, and tried very hard not to show it. He ended up calling twice more than he promised and both times, Sam did the bratty sigh and said he was fine. 

When they got back, Sam was sitting on the floor in his pajamas, a plate of rice and red beans on his lap, watching some black and white movie. Sam had smiled at Dean, and helped them bring their bags inside, even heating up more canned beans for them after.

Still, Dean only relaxed after Dad went to take a shower and Sam hugged him hard and quickly, saying, “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

Sam never really got the hang of pretending not to care about Dean. 

*

Sam’s stitches are still perfect. But instead of trying to distract Dean from the pain like he used to do when he was a kid, he’s quiet and doesn’t talk back when Dean tries to strike up a conversation. He just stitches with minty green floss, the coolness of the mint almost distracting Dean from the sting of the needle.

When he’s done, Sam trashes the bloody gauze and tissues before washing his hands. He hands Dean a couple of pills, probably painkillers, Dean hopes. His lips are set in a thin line and he looks like he’s trying hard not to yell at Dean when he says, “You should take my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“No, Sam. I’m fine. I’ll take the couch.”

“Dean.”

“Seriously, I’m fine. Just give me a pillow and I’m good.” He tries for a smile, but it only makes Sam look angrier. 

Dean turns around and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water for the pills and almost steps on Potato, who is lying right in the middle of the kitchen. “You are really inconvenient,” he tells her, and gets some water to gulp down with the pills.

When he heads back to the living room, Sam is setting a pillow and a few blankets on the couch, still looking angry, shoulders tense, and moving around like he wants to rip the sheets to shreds.

“I can do that,” he says, but Sam ignores him. “Sam.”

“You’ll rip your stitches,” Sam says, his voice tight. Dean doesn’t say anything else and watches Sam pulling a bright green pillowcase over the pillow, right as Potato saunters into the living room, climbing the TV rack and the sitting on top of the TV.

Sam finishes, and instead of going to his room in silence as Dean expects, he throws his hands in the air, frustrated, and says “Seriously? How long are you going to do that for?”

What the fuck? “What? What am I doing?”

“Hunting! You said you’d be done once the demon was dead. You and dad said you’d be done!” 

“Dude!” Dean wants to throw something at Sam. “It’s my job, Sam!”

“Seriously? Your job? You could do anything, Dean.” 

“Oh, yeah. I’m a special snowflake with a GED.” 

“You!” Sam yells loudly, then taking a deep breath, looks ready to throw punches. “You could pick apart any electronic you could find and put it back together. You’re good with cars. You were better at math than I was! And you skipped half the classes! And I was a mathlete!”

“Sam. That’s not… I like hunting. I like saving people! Hunting and—these last few years, all I’ve done is hunt and…” he trails off. He spent these years looking for Sam. And still, after so much effort, he managed to find Sam by accidentally stumbling into him. “I hunt. That’s all I’ve done all my life.”

“All you’ve done is hunt and what? Fuck everyone you could find?” Sam’s tone is vicious, but he looks hurt. And Dean feels stupid and helpless. He never reacted well when Sam was hurt, he can’t really expect Sam to be any different. “Drink until you passed out?”

“And look for you,” Dean blurts out and instantly regrets it, because Sam looks at him like he’s been slapped.

“Don’t, Dean.” Sam grits out, turning and heading to his bedroom. “Get some sleep.”

"I know I'm too late, Sammy," Dean says, words hurting his throat and Sam freezes in the hallway. “I can see you’re better off without me. I just… I think I spent too much time without you around and I can’t. I can’t stay away yet, Sammy. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“What?” Sam asks, turning back and staring at Dean.

“I was sure you were dead.” He rubs his hands on his face, feeling exhausted. “I know you don’t want me in your life. I screwed up too much, I know, ok? I just—need to be around you for a while. Then I’ll leave you alone again, I promise,” he lies, and he tries very hard not to make it obvious that he plans on stalking Sam for the rest of his fucking life.“It’s—six years is a long time, Sam.”

“We’re gonna have this conversation now? It’s three am.” Sam looks incredulous, frozen on the spot like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Dean doesn’t say anything. “Fine.” Sam says, “I know six years is long time, Dean. You’re not the only one who spent these last six years missing someone.” 

“Sam—”

“No, you know what? Fuck you!” Sam walks back until he’s a few feet away from the couch, and now he looks angry again. Dean’s awesome at making Sam angry. “I want you around. I want you to stay here, I want—fuck you! I spent so many years trying to—I thought I was sick! _You_ let me think I was sick. And I couldn’t stop.” He runs a hand through his hair, and he’s walking circles around the coffee table, Potato staring at him from her spot on top of the TV. “I tried, I tried because I thought--” he sighs, “I thought I could try to find you once I was over it. And I couldn’t! And all this time! What? All this time you were just as sick as I am? All this time you wanted me too?”

“Yes!” Dean gets up too fast, his stitches pulling and bleeding, but he doesn’t give a damn. “Yes, ok? I do. I want you and I’ve wanted you since—fuck, Sammy. Since you were a kid! Since you were fourteen!”

“What?”

“Yeah! That’s when it started for me,” he laughs a little. “You were fourteen, Sam!” Sam looks shocked. “Yeah, I know. Fucked up. You were fourteen and I was already hiding in the fucking bathroom, jerking off to you, to your friggin’ sweaty shirts. I spent a lot of time, _a lot_ of time, trying to keep it hidden! You have no idea! And you just offered it one day. Just put it on the table like it was ok. What did you expect me to do? Did you expect me to say _‘Why, yes, Sam! You’re sixteen now and you want me too; who cares that you’re my younger brother? Who cares that the things I want are fucked up? Let’s make out!’_ Like it was perfectly normal!”

“Yes, Dean!” Sam shouts back, looking more pissed than before. “Yes! You should’ve said all those things! Yes, it was fucked up! Yes, we’re brothers. But you weren’t the only one wanting things.” He smiles, but it’s not an amused smile. “You had my shirts? I had your fucking underwear, Dean! I watched you getting blown by a guy behind the gas station, and I wished I was the one with your dick in my mouth. You—“ he stops, sags a little and sighs. “You weren’t the only one, Dean, and you let me think I was.”

“I know. I know I did. I’m sorry; I’m so fucking sorry, Sam.”

“I’m not trying to--I don’t want you out of my life, Dean. I just want to—I don’t know.” He sits on the coffee table, elbows on knees and burying his hands in his hair. “I’m trying to get over the fact that I’m not as sick and twisted as I thought I was.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Sammy. There never was. I just didn’t know how say it without spilling everything else.” Dean sits back on the couch and Potato chooses that moment to leap from the TV and run to Dean’s lap. “Your cat is really ugly, dude,” he says, petting her. 

“I know.” Sam laughs a little.

They sit there in silence for a long time, Sam with his head in his hands; Potato’s purring the only sound in the living room. 

“You know what’s the most ridiculous thing, though?” Sam says after a while, standing up again and facing Dean. “You think there’s nothing wrong with me, but you still think there’s something wrong with you.”

Dean had hoped this conversation would never get here. There’s a long list of things that are wrong with Dean and he really doesn’t want to start naming them.

“Sam,” he tries, “Let’s not, ok?”

“Dean, you always took all the blame for everything for yourself.” Dean sighs as loud as he can, but Sam just goes on. “And you didn’t force me to fall for you, I did that by myself. And you—”

“I was supposed to take care of you, ok? That was my job. Where do you think wanting to fuck you enters the list? Before or after fixing your lunch? Maybe after teaching you how to sharpen knives, I should’ve taught you how to give a blowjob. How is that ok?” His voice sounds cold and flat even to his own ears, but Sam just looks at him like he can see what Dean is feeling, and Dean fucking hates it. Hates how Sam could always take him apart and look inside. Makes it even harder to breathe.

“I don’t know. The same way it was ok for me to want you to bend me over after breakfast, maybe?” Sam blushes, cheeks and ears going bright red. “If it was ok for me to want my _big brother_ , it was ok for him to want me too.” He stops and smiles a horrible sad smile, before continuing, “That night? That night you kissed me? I thought you did it to make me happy. Because you always did the stupidest things to make me happy. And when you said you needed liquid courage I thought you would sacrifice your own sanity to make your freaky little brother happy. So I had to leave, Dean.”

“It wasn’t—“

“I know that _now_. I didn’t then. And I had to leave because I would’ve taken. I think—I would gladly pretend you weren’t miserable just to have you.”

Dean feels like he’s hyperventilating, lungs constricting and aching. “Sammy…” He trails off, can’t seem to make his mind work. He tries to find the right words to say all that he wants, all that he feels and felt and how terrible everything is inside him. The words don’t come, though. Sam sighs.

“Get some sleep. I have class in the morning.” 

*

Dean paces the apartment the whole day. He takes a shower and changes his bandages and feeds Potato and paces. He stares at his flask and thinks about going out and getting shitfaced. And then he thinks about Sam’s face when Dean gets drunk. And how shitty and fucked up it would be to get drunk every time he needs courage to tell Sam all that Sam needs to hear. He doesn’t drink, he just plays with Potato and stares at the TV until his stomach is burning with hunger. 

There’s a small bakery a few blocks from Sam’s place, so Dean goes there and buys two dozen glazed donuts and eats half of them in the car. He sits there with sticky sugary fingers and thinks long and hard about what he’s going to do with himself once Sam comes home and tells him to leave and this time never come back.

He doesn’t think it will happen, not really. Not this time.

But Sam was always too good at surprising Dean.

*

Dean doesn’t say anything when Sam comes in. He gets up from the couch and waits. Sam’s shoulders are tense and his mouth is a hard line. “Do you still want this?” he asks Dean, putting his bag on the floor by the door, his face is blank and he’s not looking at him. It makes him nervous and awkward and he hates it, because Sam is not giving anything away. “Because, I gotta tell you, Dean. I’m pissed at you. And right now, the only thing stopping me from kicking your ass is that I don’t want to stitch you up again.” He stops, crosses his arms like he’s not sure what he wants to do anymore. “Do you still want me?”

“Yeah.” Dean’s voice is breaking, and he thinks, briefly, that his heart is about to beat right out of his chest. “Yes, Sammy.”

Sam looks at him then. He still looks pissed, still looks like he wants to throw something at Dean, but there’s hope and a shit ton of uncertainty there too, like he doesn’t know if he can trust Dean on this. Fuck.

“I do, Sammy,” he says, forcing himself to sound sure and not as scared _shitless_ as he actually feels. “I—no one else. Not ever.”

Sam snorts at that. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m not saying I was celibate, Jesus! I’m—I couldn’t like. I didn’t.” He sighs, frustrated. This is the friggin’ opportunity he’s been waiting for and all he can do is stammer and shake. The problem is, of course, that as much as he wanted a second opportunity to say it all, he never really managed to explain it, not even to himself. He’s in love with Sam, it’s true. He’s been in love with Sam as long as he can remember it, but it’s more. It’s something gigantic and horrible, it’s obsessive and sick and Dean constantly feels like he’s close to drowning, like there’s a weight on his chest, a thing between his lungs, forcing him to survive in shallow breaths. It’s spending six years feeling like the world is wrong, and no amount of booze and sex or hunting fixes it. Sam is stuck inside his chest, he’s just too big. He takes a deep breath and says, “They were never you, Sam.”

He’s expecting Sam to argue more, yell maybe. He’s expecting Sam to look at him with those disappointed eyes he used when Dean sided with their Dad.

But Sam did always love surprising the hell out of Dean.

Sam smiles. He walks forward until he’s so close Dean can smell the coffee on his breath. Dean opens his mouth, and he knows he’s about to say something really stupid, because that’s what he does when he’s face to face with something he wants, but Sam says, “No. Shut up,” and kisses him.

It’s just like and completely different from the last time they kissed. Sam kisses him like they are dying and Dean kisses back because he feels like they are. He’s overwhelmed and it’s awesome. Sam seems to be everywhere at once, hands pulling at Dean’s shirts until he feels like the seams are ripping and scratching at every piece of skin he can find. 

“I tried, but—fuck, they were never you either,” Sam gasps between kisses.

“This is so fucked up.” Dean laughs, and stops kissing just long enough to take off his own shirt before Sam rip it off. “We are so fucked up, Sammy.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam scrapes his teeth on Dean’s neck, sending awesome shivers down Dean’s back before giving him what will turn out to be an impressive hickey later. “Evidence,” Sam whispers, and starts pushing Dean until they hit the wall.

Sam’s face is smooth and clean shaven, but his mouth still feels like a brand on Dean’s body. His hands are big and calloused and Sam runs them all over Dean’s torso while his mouth follows with hard bites and licks. “Sam—fuck!”

“I thought about this a lot,” Sam says against Dean’s navel, kneeling on the floor and unbuckling Dean’s belt. “I used to jerk off thinking about you fucking my mouth.” His voice is muffled against Dean’s crotch, where Sam keeps rubbing his cheek against the jeans, against Dean’s half-hard dick. “I wanted you to come in my mouth, I wanted to taste it so, so bad, Dean. You have no idea.” Sam unzips him then, pulls down his pants and underwear in one movement.

“Jesus, Sam!”

Sam’s hands are hot where he’s touching Dean’s thigh, scratching and rubbing until Dean feels shivery. “That’s why I need this. I just—“ He bites at the softest part of Dean’s thigh hard enough to make them both hiss before licking a long stripe from the root to the head of Dean’s dick. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says and swallows it down to the root. The surprise of the heat is enough to make Dean slap his hands on the wall at his sides.

It’s sloppy and wet. Sam sucks him like a starving man, nails constantly grazing Dean’s legs and, fuck, fucking himself on Dean’s dick like he can’t get enough. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, Sam!” Dean has imagined this, played and replayed scenarios in his head until his dick was chafed. But somehow Sam is better. Sam has his eyes closed and spit running down his chin, and he swallows around the head like he wants it deeper and it’s making Dean stupid with it.

Sam pulls off, licking his lips. “Grab my hair, Dean,” he says, rubbing the head on his lips, spreading pre-come and spit until it looks like a wet mess. “C’mon, Dean. Please, just—please!” Dean does, grabs two handfuls, and uses it to hold Sam’s face and fuck it. Sam groans, loud and strong, the vibrations getting Dean closer to coming, and keeps trying to get Dean to do it harder, deeper, to use his mouth. And Dean can’t look at him anymore, can’t see Sam’s lips red and bruised trying to keep up with Dean’s movement, face blissed out. He closes his eyes.

He tries to pull away twice, to give Sam more room to breathe in more than short shallow breaths, but Sam doesn’t let him. He keeps shoving his face forward until Dean’s trapped and never too far from Sam’s throat.

He hears the sound of a zipper before registering that Sam’s hands are not touching him anymore. Sam starts groaning then, his groans louder than Dean’s and he doesn’t even have to look down to know that Sam’s jerking off, a loud and fast pace that fills the room. Sam whimpers, rubbing his tongue on the underside of Dean’s dick and comes all over Dean’s boots. It’s the hottest thing Dean’s ever seen. 

“Sam, oh, oh fuck—Sammy, gonna come.” Sam whimpers again and his hands are back, sticky with come, holding Dean against the wall, fucking his own mouth on Dean’s dick. He’s even sloppier now, an angry pace and hard suction, and Dean comes. He comes with his hands buried in Sam’s hair and his dick in Sam’s throat, until his knees are shaking and his mouth is hanging open, sucking in hard breaths. 

He lets go of Sam’s hair when Sam pulls away, licking every last drop of Dean’s come and sitting on his heels. He's a mess. Wild hair and fucked mouth, face flushed and sweaty. It’s much better than Dean ever imagined.

He slumps against the wall grinning, and Sam grins back.

*

They fuck again, this time in the shower, both of them naked against the wall. Sam fucks into Dean with fast thrusts that are so good, they makes it hard to breathe; coming inside Dean and fingering him until Dean comes almost painfully hard. 

Dean takes his time later, with Sam spread on the bed, miles and miles of wet tanned skin, licking and biting him everywhere his mouth can reach, and fucking him open with his tongue until Sam’s spurting pre-come practically nonstop. Sam’s hot and tight and he wraps his legs around Dean’s waist and tells Dean about all the filthy stuff he always wanted Dean to do to him, while Dean fucks him with a torturously slow pace.

By the end of the night, they are both messy with come and lube, and Dean actually feels ridiculously happy.

*

“Ok, so tell me,” Sam says, biting into a grilled banana and peanut butter sandwich. 

“No.” Dean says, scraping the cheese of his non-disgusting sandwich off the grill. “Not tellin’.”

“Dude, come on!” Sam is shirtless, his hair is a wild monster and his mouth is surrounded by angry red marks that Dean’s stubble put there. He’s sex bruised and looks like a perfect candidate for a good walk of shame. It’s the best thing Dean has ever seen. “I don’t understand! I was here the whole time! How—“

“Just give up, Sam.” Dean can’t help but smile, sitting across from Sam at the kitchen table. “I’m not saying.”

“What the hell! It’s just a sandwich! I know all the ingredients! How can yours be so much better?” 

“I don’t know, Sam. I’m just that awesome.” 

“Do you do something to the banana?” Sam asks and Dean barks out a laugh. “Not like _that_ , Dean!”

Dean just laughs more, Sam smiles and shakes his head, looking vaguely scandalized. It occurs to Dean that he knows now what Sam tastes like, what noises he makes when he comes, what it’s like to open Sam up with his tongue and his fingers and his dick. He knows now what it’s like to have Sam’s dick inside him, and what it’s like to have Sam holding him down on a bed. He knows what it’s like to kiss away the taste of his own come on Sam’s tongue. And he feels like he can finally breathe.

“I’m not going to ask you to stop hunting,” Sam says after a while, licking peanut butter from his lip before Dean does the sappy thing of leaning across the table to steal the taste away. Dean doesn’t even like peanut butter and banana.

“What?” Dean asks, distracted.

“I’m not going to ask you to stop hunting,” Sam says again, “and you won’t ask me to drop out of school.”

“Ok,” Dean bites into his sandwich and tries not to wince at Sam’s calm tone. “I’m not quitting, Sam.”

“And you’ll never stay away longer than two weeks,” Sam goes on, and this time, he puts the sandwich down. “You’ll call me if you—no. You’ll call me every other day while you’re hunting.” Dean nods, because now he thinks he’s allowed to hope. “And I’ll help you research if I can, and you’ll never lie to me about what you’re hunting, ok?”

“Ok. I can do that,” Dean says, and Sam nods.

“And you’ll call me if you need help.”

Dean shakes his head. “I’ve got Bobby’s number on speed dial. I’m not going to get you to bust me out of anything.” Sam opens his mouth to protest, but Dean holds up a hand. “No. You’re not getting into this just to get yourself hurt. No, Sam.” Sam sighs, but Dean ignores him. “I want you to stop walking around unarmed; at least take a friggin’ Bowie with you if you don’t want a gun. Knives were always your thing. And we’re gonna protect this place. Not just the devil’s trap under the rug. We’re gonna carve or draw or paint every symbol we can without losing your deposit.”

“Painting, yes. Carving, no.”

“Awesome.” Dean bites into his sandwich and continues talking with his mouth full, just to see Sam make a face. “And I won’t lie about what I’m hunting. But, Sam, I won’t always tell you.”

“Dean—“

“Sam, some stuff—just, no, man. Some stuff, you know. It’s too ugly. You see it or you don’t. No talking about that shit.”

“Yeah, I—I know. Right.” Sam scrubs a hand through his face and hair, before nodding. “Just… try to come home in one piece, please. Dean, I--”

“I know.”

Sam gets up to fill his mug and Dean feels free to stare at the scratches on his back. So Dean is one of _those_ people. He can’t honestly say he’s surprised.

“I kinda—“ Sam starts, once he’s back in his chair. “I feel like an astronaut’s wife or something.”

“I’ll always come home.” Dean blows him a kiss. “You’re my boo, babe.”

Sam makes a face. “I thought the car was your baby.”

“No need to be jealous.” 

Sam smiles his bright dimpled smile, the one that always made Dean crazy, and Dean feels like he’s won something huge.

“Seriously, though.” Sam says, still smiling. “Is it something with the butter?”

Dean shakes his head. “Sam, just accept my awesomeness. Even sandwiches know it.”

“But—“

Dean does the sappy thing, then, and leans over the table to kiss Sam, who tastes like coffee and horrible banana and peanut butter stuff, but Dean can’t stop once he starts it. Sam kisses back, nails scraping over the hair on the back of Dean’s neck and it’s the best fucking thing ever. 

There’s still a lot for them to fix, and a lot to talk about. But Dean feels, suddenly and for the first time in years, like he can finally breathe.

 

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction written for the 2012 [Supernatural Reverse Bang's Challenge](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Title from Emiliana Torrini's _[Sea People](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkLS6WRBc4)_.
> 
> First, thank you to Kady for creating [the piece that inspired this all](http://bt-kady.livejournal.com/71621.html) and for being the most understanding, most awesome artist ever. And for beta-ing so quickly. You saved my life! Also, [Sydnee](http://thecapn.tumblr.com) for inspiring me and for constantly breaking my heart with her writings.
> 
> And finally, thank you to Ivana for being great and fantastic and never giving up on me or this fic. This whole thing is completely her fault. I went, “I wonder if…” and she enabled me and picked at my brain until I was sitting with my computer and crying on my keyboard while I typed. Though she was mad at Dean the whole time, and more than once dedicated Kate Nash’s _[Dickhead](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suaveqvlWP8)_ to him. I love you, honey! This is your baby! *sigh* 
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
